Methven & Mt Hutt, 24th - 28th August 2010 "If you can't beat them, join them" and so we decided to embrace the freezing cold New Zealand winter and spend the last few days in a ski resort. We left Lake Tekapo and it was our last Magic Bus journey with Gemma, as we were getting off at Methven and she was going up to Picton. When we got to Methven he said we were having a toilet stop and Gemma and a lot of others got off the bus. However, he th...

Dunedin = boring 22nd - 23rd August Well what to do in this exciting, city never sleeps... sorry, awakens town? Let's see there's a small Railway station (apparently the most photographed building in Dunedin - wtf, it's a railway station!) A public art gallery - no thanks A transportation Museum- erm, seriously?! An immigration Museum - nope Baldwin Street - reputed to be in the Guinness book of World Records for World's steepest street - this nearly killed...

Queenstown, 18th - 22nd August 2010 We got to Queenstown late Tuesday afternoon and Gemma was at the hostel to meet us. :) No-one else on the Magic bus was staying here and quite frankly for very good reason. It had been taken over by new owners and has changed its name from Resort Lodge to 'The Lab' - seriously did they think they were a bunch of mad scientists or something? If you're ever thinking of coming to Queenstown, a word of advice - don't stay here.Th...

Franz Joseph, 13th - 18th August 2010 Franz Joseph is home to a 15km Glacier, rainforest, hot pools and sky diving. We decided to stay 4 nights as we wanted to do a full day's Glacier hike. It amazes me how small some of these towns are. When we got here we went for a walk to 'the high street' which consists of a tiny supermarket, 2 souvenir shops, a coffee shop, a combined bar & restaurant, a petrol station and 2 local activity stores. Add the 3 hostels...

Nelson, 10th - 13th August 2010 Sorry for the radio silence for a while peeps.We've been pretty busy and wifi has been awful, but here we go ... Word of warning this Blog is huge - Uncle Raymond, you might need to turn the forks over before you start reading this hahahaha. We left the frozen town of Kaikoura behind and headed up the east coast to Picton and then over to Nelson. Our bus driver was doing our head in so we decided to stay in Nelson for a few nig...